When the Communist International (Comintern) was dissolved in 1943 in order for the Soviet Union to withhold its alliance with the other Allies of World War II, a new musical piece was needed to replace The Internationale as the national anthem. A contest was held in mid to late 1943 for a new anthem to be selected, with more than 200 submitted entries.[5] Alexandrov's music was chosen by Stalin personally, who both praised and criticized the song.[6] Once the song was selected, new lyrics had to be written. Stalin thought that the hymn to be short, and that it had to invoke the Red Army's impending victory over the forces of Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front, the poets Sergey Mikhalkov and Gabriel El-Registan were selected to write new lyrics by Stalin's staffers, and were called to Moscow. They were tasked with writing new lyrics which referenced not only the Great Patriotic War, but also "a Country of Soviets", the first draft of the lyrics were completed overnight. Stalin had suggested more lyrics be made about himself, and so an extra line was added making reference to Stalin inspiring the people.[citation needed]

The anthem was first published on 7 November 1943, was played for the first time on Soviet radio at midnight on 1 January 1944 and was officially adopted on 15 March the same year,[7] the newly created lyrics had three different refrains following three different stanzas; in each refrain, the second line was consequently modified with references to friendship, then happiness and finally to glory. Joseph Stalin and the Soviet Union's war against Nazi Germany were originally invoked in the second and third verses respectively.

With the process of de-Stalinization inaugurated after Stalin's death, the lyrics which referred to Stalin were considered unacceptable and during 1953–1977 the anthem was performed without lyrics.[8] A notable exception took place at the 1976 Canada Cup ice hockey tournament, where the singer Roger Doucet insisted on performing the anthem with lyrics, after consultations with Russian studies scholars from Université de Montréal and the Soviet team officials.[9][10] In 1977, to coincide with the 60th anniversary of the October Revolution, revised lyrics, earlier written in 1970 by the original author Sergey Mikhalkov,[11] were adopted. The varying refrains were replaced by a uniform refrain following all stanzas; the line praising Stalin was dropped, as were the lines referring to the Great Patriotic War. A notable change in the lyrics is the replacement of a line referencing the Flag of the Soviet Union to one mentioning the Bolshevik Party in the form of "Partiya Lenina" (The party of Lenin). These lyrics were also present in the original Bolshevik party anthem at the same location within the melody, followed by the lyrics "Partiya Stalina" (The party of Stalin).

Also, the same music was used for a proposal of the anthem of the State Union of Russia and Belarus entitled Derzhavny Soyuz Narodov (Union of Sovereign Nations). Although never officially adopted, the lyrics of that piece were not tied to any specific nationality, and could be adopted for a broader union. However, there appears to be no plans to utilize that piece in any official role, the anthem also had official versions in the languages of every Soviet republic and in several other Soviet languages.

1.
Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic
–
The Republic comprised sixteen autonomous republics, five autonomous oblasts, ten autonomous okrugs, six krais, and forty oblasts. Russians formed the largest ethnic group, the capital of the Russian SFSR was Moscow and the other major urban centers included Leningrad, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod and Samara. The Russian Soviet Republic was proclaimed on November 7,1917 as a sovereign state, the first Constitution was adopted in 1918. In 1922 the Russian SFSR signed the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR, the economy of Russia became heavily industrialized, accounting for about two-thirds of the electricity produced in the USSR. It was, by 1961, the third largest producer of petroleum due to new discoveries in the Volga-Urals region and Siberia, trailing only the United States and Saudi Arabia. In 1974, there were 475 institutes of education in the republic providing education in 47 languages to some 23,941,000 students. A network of territorially organized public-health services provided health care, the effects of market policies led to the failure of many enterprises and total instability by 1990. On June 12,1990, the Congress of Peoples Deputies adopted the Declaration of State Sovereignty, on June 12,1991, Boris Yeltsin was elected the first President. On December 8,1991, heads of Russia, Ukraine, the agreement declared dissolution of the USSR by its founder states and established the Commonwealth of Independent States. On December 12, the agreement was ratified by the Russian Parliament, therefore Russian SFSR denounced the Treaty on the Creation of the USSR and de facto declared Russias independence from the USSR. On December 25,1991, following the resignation of Mikhail Gorbachev as president of the Soviet Union, on December 26,1991, the USSR was self-dissolved by the Soviet of Nationalities, which by that time was the only functioning house of the Supreme Soviet. After dissolution of the USSR, Russia declared that it assumed the rights and obligations of the dissolved central Soviet government, the new Russian constitution, adopted on December 12,1993 after a constitutional crisis, abolished the Soviet system of government in its entirety. Initially, the state did not have a name and wasnt recognized by neighboring countries for five months. Meanwhile, anti-Bolsheviks coined the mocking label Sovdepia for the nascent state of the Soviets of Workers, on January 25,1918 the third meeting of the All-Russian Congress of Soviets renamed the unrecognized state the Soviet Russian Republic. The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed on March 3,1918, on July 10,1918, the Russian Constitution of 1918 renamed the country the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic. By 1918, during the Russian Civil War, several states within the former Russian Empire seceded, internationally, in 1920, the RSFSR was recognized as an independent state only by Estonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania in the Treaty of Tartu and by the short-lived Irish Republic. On December 30,1922, with the creation of the Soviet Union, the final Soviet name for the republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, was adopted in the Soviet Constitution of 1936. By that time, Soviet Russia had gained roughly the same borders of the old Tsardom of Russia before the Great Northern War of 1700

2.
Soviet Union
–
The Soviet Union, officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a socialist state in Eurasia that existed from 1922 to 1991. It was nominally a union of national republics, but its government. The Soviet Union had its roots in the October Revolution of 1917 and this established the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic and started the Russian Civil War between the revolutionary Reds and the counter-revolutionary Whites. In 1922, the communists were victorious, forming the Soviet Union with the unification of the Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian, following Lenins death in 1924, a collective leadership and a brief power struggle, Joseph Stalin came to power in the mid-1920s. Stalin suppressed all opposition to his rule, committed the state ideology to Marxism–Leninism. As a result, the country underwent a period of rapid industrialization and collectivization which laid the foundation for its victory in World War II and postwar dominance of Eastern Europe. Shortly before World War II, Stalin signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact agreeing to non-aggression with Nazi Germany, in June 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, opening the largest and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war casualties accounted for the highest proportion of the conflict in the effort of acquiring the upper hand over Axis forces at battles such as Stalingrad. Soviet forces eventually captured Berlin in 1945, the territory overtaken by the Red Army became satellite states of the Eastern Bloc. The Cold War emerged by 1947 as the Soviet bloc confronted the Western states that united in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in 1949. Following Stalins death in 1953, a period of political and economic liberalization, known as de-Stalinization and Khrushchevs Thaw, the country developed rapidly, as millions of peasants were moved into industrialized cities. The USSR took a lead in the Space Race with Sputnik 1, the first ever satellite, and Vostok 1. In the 1970s, there was a brief détente of relations with the United States, the war drained economic resources and was matched by an escalation of American military aid to Mujahideen fighters. In the mid-1980s, the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, sought to reform and liberalize the economy through his policies of glasnost. The goal was to preserve the Communist Party while reversing the economic stagnation, the Cold War ended during his tenure, and in 1989 Soviet satellite countries in Eastern Europe overthrew their respective communist regimes. This led to the rise of strong nationalist and separatist movements inside the USSR as well, in August 1991, a coup détat was attempted by Communist Party hardliners. It failed, with Russian President Boris Yeltsin playing a role in facing down the coup. On 25 December 1991, Gorbachev resigned and the twelve constituent republics emerged from the dissolution of the Soviet Union as independent post-Soviet states

3.
Sergey Mikhalkov
–
Mikhalkov was born in Moscow, Russian Empire, to Vladimir Alexandrovich Mikhalkov and Olga Mikhailovna. Mikhalkov stemmed from the family of Mikhalkovs and had tsarist admirals, governors. Since the 1930s, he has rivalled Korney Chukovsky and Agniya Barto as the most popular poet writing for Russophone children and his poems about enormously tall Uncle Styopa enjoyed particular popularity. Uncle Styopa is a friendly policeman always ready to rescue cats stuck up trees, in English, his name translates as Uncle Steeple. As a 29-year-old in 1942, Mikhalkovs work drew the attention of the Soviet Unions leader Joseph Stalin, at the time, the country was deeply embroiled in World War II and Stalin wanted a Russian theme for the national anthem, to replace the Internationale. Mikhalkov penned words to accompany a musical score by the composer Alexander Alexandrov that became known as National Anthem of the Soviet Union, the new anthem was presented to Stalin in the summer of 1943 and was introduced as the countrys new anthem on January 1,1944. On the death of Stalin in 1953, the lyrics, which mentioned him by name, were discarded during the process of destalinization, Mikhalkov wrote new lyrics in 1970, but they were not submitted to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet until May 27,1977. The new lyrics, which removed any reference to Stalin, were approved on September 1 and were made official with the printing of the new Soviet Constitution in October 1977 and his younger brother Mikhail Mikhalkov was also a notable writer as well as a KGB agent. Use of the Soviet anthem, with Mikhalkovs lyrics, continued until 1991, however, when Vladimir Putin took over from Yeltsin in 2000, he began to clamor for a restoration of Alexandrov’s music in place of Yeltsins choice. But when Putin’s push to restore the old anthem began to pick up momentum, he picked up his pen once again, the result was the National Anthem of Russia, which was officially adopted in 2001. Apart from the anthem, Mikhalkov produced a great number of satirical plays. He also successfully revived a long derelict genre of satirical fable and he was awarded three Stalin Prizes and numerous other awards. On his 90th birthday in 2003, Putin personally visited him at his home to present him with the 2nd class Order For Service to Fatherland, citing him for his contributions to culture of Russia. Mikhalkov was also decorated with a Hero of Socialist Labor and the Order of Lenin, among others, in 1936 Mikhalkov married Natalia Petrovna Konchalovskaya, granddaughter of Vasily Surikov. They remained married for 53 years until her death, in 1997 Mikhalkov married physics professor Yulia Valeryevna Subbotina. Mikhalkov died in his sleep at the age of 96 in a Moscow hospital and his funeral, held at the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, was attended by family, friends, and government officials. He was buried at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow with full military honors, Order For Merit to the Fatherland, 2nd Class - for outstanding contributions to the development of national culture. Order of Honour - for great contributions to the development of domestic multi-national culture

4.
Alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov
–
During his career, he also worked as a professor of the Moscow State Conservatory, and became a Doctor of Arts. His work was recognized by the awards of the title of Peoples Artist of the USSR, alexander Vasilyevich Alexandrov, known as Sasha, was born on 13 April in Plakhino, a village in Ryazan Governorate south-east of Moscow. As a boy his singing was so impressive that he travelled to Saint Petersburg to become a chorister at Kazan Cathedral. A pupil of Medtner, he studied composition at Saint Petersburg and in Moscow and it was very popular, and was used by the Soviet Union until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. It later became the National Anthem of Russia in December 2000 and he also composed the famous song The Sacred War, and the official march of the Soviet and now Russian Armed Forces, the Song of the Soviet Army. He died on 8 July 1946, while on tour in Berlin, Alexandrov Ensemble Alexandrov Ensemble choir Alexandrov Ensemble soloists Alexandrov Ensemble discography Boris Alexandrovich Alexandrov Geraldika biography of A. V

5.
Russian language
–
Russian is an East Slavic language and an official language in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and many minor or unrecognised territories. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of the four living members of the East Slavic languages, written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century and beyond. It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages and it is also the largest native language in Europe, with 144 million native speakers in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the eighth most spoken language in the world by number of native speakers, the language is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Russian is also the second most widespread language on the Internet after English, Russian distinguishes between consonant phonemes with palatal secondary articulation and those without, the so-called soft and hard sounds. This distinction is found between pairs of almost all consonants and is one of the most distinguishing features of the language, another important aspect is the reduction of unstressed vowels. Russian is a Slavic language of the Indo-European family and it is a lineal descendant of the language used in Kievan Rus. From the point of view of the language, its closest relatives are Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Rusyn. An East Slavic Old Novgorod dialect, although vanished during the 15th or 16th century, is considered to have played a significant role in the formation of modern Russian. In the 19th century, the language was often called Great Russian to distinguish it from Belarusian, then called White Russian and Ukrainian, however, the East Slavic forms have tended to be used exclusively in the various dialects that are experiencing a rapid decline. In some cases, both the East Slavic and the Church Slavonic forms are in use, with different meanings. For details, see Russian phonology and History of the Russian language and it is also regarded by the United States Intelligence Community as a hard target language, due to both its difficulty to master for English speakers and its critical role in American world policy. The standard form of Russian is generally regarded as the modern Russian literary language, mikhail Lomonosov first compiled a normalizing grammar book in 1755, in 1783 the Russian Academys first explanatory Russian dictionary appeared. By the mid-20th century, such dialects were forced out with the introduction of the education system that was established by the Soviet government. Despite the formalization of Standard Russian, some nonstandard dialectal features are observed in colloquial speech. Thus, the Russian language is the 6th largest in the world by number of speakers, after English, Mandarin, Hindi/Urdu, Spanish, Russian is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. Education in Russian is still a choice for both Russian as a second language and native speakers in Russia as well as many of the former Soviet republics. Russian is still seen as an important language for children to learn in most of the former Soviet republics, samuel P. Huntington wrote in the Clash of Civilizations, During the heyday of the Soviet Union, Russian was the lingua franca from Prague to Hanoi

6.
Romanization of Russian
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Romanization of the Russian alphabet is the process of transliterating the Russian language from the Cyrillic script into the Latin alphabet. Scientific transliteration, also known as the International Scholarly System, is a system that has used in linguistics since the 19th century. It is based on the Czech alphabet and formed the basis of the GOST, OST8483 was the first Soviet standard on romanization of Russian, introduced in 16 October 1935. This standard is an equivalent of GOST 16876-71 and was adopted as a standard of the COMECON. GOST7. 79-2000 System of Standards on Information, Librarianship and it is the official standard of both Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Machine readable passports is an adoption of an ICAO stadards for travel documents and it was used in Russian passports for a short period during 2010–2013. The standard was substituted in 2013 by GOST R ISO/IEC 7501-1-2013, which does not contain romanization, ISO/R9, established in 1954 and updated in 1968, was the adoption of the scientific transliteration by the International Organization for Standardization. It covers Russian and seven other Slavic languages, ISO9,1995 is the current transliteration standard from ISO. It is based on its predecessor ISO/R9,1968, which it deprecates, for Russian, the UNGEGN, a Working Group of the United Nations, in 1987 recommended a romanization system for geographical names, which was based on the 1983 version of GOST 16876-71. It may be found in some international cartographic products, American Library Association and Library of Congress romanization tables for Slavic alphabets are used in North American libraries and in the British Library since 1975. The formal, unambiguous version of the system requires some diacritics and two-letter tie characters, British Standard 2979,1958 is the main system of the Oxford University Press, and a variation was used by the British Library to catalogue publications acquired up to 1975. The BGN/PCGN system is relatively intuitive for Anglophones to read and pronounce, the portion of the system pertaining to the Russian language was adopted by BGN in 1944 and by PCGN in 1947. In Soviet international passports, transliteration was based on French rules, in 1997, with the introduction of new Russian passports, a diacritic-free English-oriented system was established by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but this system was also abandoned in 2010. In 2006, GOST52535. 1-2006 was adopted, which defines technical requirements and standards for Russian international passports, in 2010, the Federal Migratory Service of Russia approved Order No. 26, stating that all names in the passports issued after 2010 must be transliterated using GOST52535. 1-2006. The standard was abandoned in 2013, finally in 2013, Order No.320 of the Federal Migratory Service of Russia came into force. It states that all names in the passports must be transliterated using the ICAO system. This system differs from the GOST52535. 1-2006 system in two things, ц is transliterated into ts, ъ is transliterated into ie, Scholarly ¹ Some archaic letters are transcribed in different ways

7.
National anthem
–
The majority of national anthems are either marches or hymns in style. The countries of Latin America tend towards more operatic pieces, while a handful of countries use a simple fanfare, a national anthem is usually in the national or most common language of the country, whether de facto or official, there are notable exceptions. Amhrán na bhFiann, the anthem of the Republic of Ireland, was written in English, the current national anthem of South Africa is unique in that five of the countrys eleven official languages are used in the same anthem. One of the two national anthems of New Zealand, God Defend New Zealand, is commonly now sung with the first verse in Māori. The tune is the same but the words are not a translation of each other. God Bless Fiji has lyrics in English and Fijian which are not translations of each other, although official, the Fijian version is rarely sung, and it is usually the English version that is performed at international sporting events. There are several countries that do not have official lyrics to their anthems, one of these is the Marcha Real, the anthem of Spain. In 2007 a national competition to write words was held, other anthems with no words include Inno Nazionale della Repubblica, the anthem of San Marino, and that of Kosovo, entitled Europe. National anthems rose to prominence in Europe during the 19th century, the oldest national anthem belongs to the Netherlands and is called the Wilhelmus. It was written between 1568 and 1572 during the Dutch Revolt, but did not become the anthem until 1932. The Japanese anthem, Kimigayo, has the oldest lyrics, which were taken from a Heian period poem, in contrast, the music of Qaumi Taranah, Pakistans national anthem was composed in 1949, preceding its lyrics, which were written in 1952. The Philippine anthem Lupang Hinirang was composed in 1898 as wordless incidental music for the ceremony declaring independence from the Spanish Empire, the Spanish poem Filipinas was written the following year to serve as the anthems lyrics, the current Tagalog version dates to 1962. Spains national anthem, the Marcha Real, written in 1761, was among the first to be adopted as such, in 1770. Denmark adopted the older of its two national anthems, Kong Christian stod ved højen mast, in 1780, and La Marseillaise, Serbia became the first Eastern European nation to have a national anthem – Rise up, Serbia. – in 1804. Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu, the anthem of Kenya, is one of the first national anthems to be specifically commissioned. It was written by the Kenyan Anthem Commission in 1963 to serve as the anthem after independence from the United Kingdom, National anthems are used in a wide array of contexts. Certain etiquette may be involved in the playing of a countrys anthem and these usually involve military honours, standing up/rising, removing headwear etc. In diplomatic situations the rules may be very formal, there may also be royal anthems, presidential anthems, state anthems etc. for special occasions

8.
The Internationale
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The Internationale is a left-wing anthem. It has been a standard of the socialist movement since the nineteenth century. The title arises from the First International, an alliance of workers which held a congress in 1864, the author of the anthems lyrics, Eugène Pottier, attended this congress. The original French refrain of the song is Cest la lutte finale / Groupons-nous et demain / LInternationale / Sera le genre humain, the Internationale has been translated into many languages. The Internationale has been celebrated by communists, socialists, anarchists, democratic socialists and it was also used by Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. The original French words were written in June 1871 by Eugène Pottier and were intended to be sung to the tune of La Marseillaise. Pierre De Geyter set the poem to music in 1888 and his melody was first publicly performed in July 1888 and became widely used soon after. In a successful attempt to save Pierre De Geyters job as a woodcarver, in 1904, Pierres brother Adolphe was induced by the Lille mayor Gustave Delory to claim copyright, so that the income of the song would continue to go to Delorys French Socialist Party. In 1972 Montana Edition owned by Hans R. Beierlein bought the rights for 5,000 Deutschmark, first for the territory of the West Germany, then East Germany, East Germany paid 20,000 DM every year for playing the music. Pierre De Geyter died in 1932, which means the copyright expired 2002, the German text Luckhards is public domain since 1984. As the Internationale music was published before 1 July 1909 outside the United States of America, as of 2013, Pierre De Geyters music is also in the public domain in countries and areas whose copyright durations are authors lifetime plus 80 years or less. Due to Frances wartime copyright extensions, SACEM claims that the music was copyrighted in France until October 2014. As Eugène Pottier died in 1887, his original French lyrics are in the public domain, Gustave Delory once acquired the copyright of his lyrics through the songwriter G B Clement having bought it from Pottiers widow. The German version, Die Internationale, was used by East German anti-Stalinists in 1953, luckhardts version, the standard German translation, of the final line of the chorus tellingly reads, Die Internationale erkämpft das Menschenrecht. It was coupled with the chant, Volkspolizei, steh dem Volke bei The Internationale in Chinese, versions of the song in Indian languages, particularly Bengali and Malayalam, have existed since the time of colonial rule. It was translated into Bengali by the radical poet Kazi Nazrul Islam, the Assamese version was translated by the poet Bishnu Rabha. In the 1980s, more translations appeared, translations by Sachidanandan and Mokeri Ramachandran were sung by the activists of Janakeeya Samskarikavedi, an organisation connected with CPI (CPI. Translation by N. P. Chandrasekharan was for Students Federation of India, the student organisation associated with CPI (CPI and published in the Student Monthly, the organ of SFI

9.
National anthem of Russia
–
The State Anthem of the Russian Federation is the name of the official national anthem of Russia. Its musical composition and lyrics were adopted from the State Anthem of the Soviet Union, composed by Alexander Alexandrov, the Soviet anthem was used from 1944, replacing The Internationale with a more Sovietcentric and Russiacentric song. The anthem had no lyrics after 1956, due to the lyrics having references to former leader Joseph Stalin. New lyrics were introduced in 1977 by Mikhalkov with lyrics placing less emphasis on World War II, the Russian SFSR was the only republic of the USSR without its own anthem, although most republics within the federation did have anthems of their own. The government sponsored contests to create lyrics for the unpopular anthem, Glinkas anthem was replaced soon after Yeltsins successor as President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, first took office on 7 May 2000. Yeltsin criticized Putin for supporting the reintroduction of the Soviet-era national anthem even though opinion polls showed that many Russians favored this decision, Public perception of the anthem is mixed among Russians. The anthem reminds some of the best days of Russia and past sacrifices, the Russian government maintains that the anthem is a symbol of the unity of the people, and that it respects the past. A2009 poll showed that 56% of respondents felt proud when hearing the anthem, before Molitva russkikh was chosen as the national anthem of Imperial Russia in 1816, various church hymns and military marches were used to honor the country and the Tsars. Songs used include Grom pobedy, razdavaysya. and Kol slaven, Molitva russkikh was adopted around 1816, and used lyrics by Vasily Zhukovsky set to the music of the British anthem, God Save the King. Russias anthem was also influenced by the anthems of France and the Netherlands, in 1833, Zhukovsky was asked to set lyrics to a musical composition by Prince Alexei Lvov called The Russian Peoples Prayer. Known more commonly as God Save the Tsar and it was well received by Nicholas I, who chose the song to be the next anthem of Imperial Russia. The song resembled a hymn, and its style was similar to that of other anthems used by European monarchs. God Save the Tsar. was performed for the first time on 8 December 1833 and it was later played at the Winter Palace on Christmas Day, by order of Nicholas I. Public singing of the anthem began at opera houses in 1834, God Save the Tsar. was used until the February Revolution, when the Russian monarchy was overthrown. Upon the overthrow, in March 1917, the Workers Marseillaise, the modifications Lavrov made to La Marseillaise included a change in meter from 2/2 to 4/4 and music harmonization to make it sound more Russian. It was used at meetings, welcoming ceremonies for diplomats. After the Bolsheviks overthrew the government in the 1917 October Revolution. Kots also changed the grammatical tense of the song, to make it more decisive in nature, the first major use of the song was at the funeral of victims of the February Revolution in Petrograd

10.
Joseph Stalin
–
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in 1917 in order to manage the Bolshevik Revolution, alongside Lenin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Sokolnikov, and Bubnov. Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and he managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenins criticisms and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained General Secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–33, major figures in the Communist Party and government, and many Red Army high commanders, were arrested and shot after being convicted of treason in show trials. Stalins invasion of Bukovina in 1940 violated the pact, as it went beyond the Soviet sphere of influence agreed with the Axis, Germany ended the pact when Hitler launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow, after defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States, Communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were established in most countries freed from German occupation by the Red Army, which later constituted the Eastern Bloc. Stalin also had relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. On February 9,1946, Stalin delivered a public speech in which he explained the fundamental incompatibility of communism and capitalism. He stressed that the system needed war for raw materials. The Second World War was but the latest in a chain of conflicts which could be broken only when the economy made the transformation into communism. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War, Stalin remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed, the exact number of deaths caused by Stalins regime is still a subject of debate, but it is widely agreed to be in the order of millions. Joseph Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, the Russian-language version of his birth name is Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Ioseb was born on 18 December 1878 in the town of Gori, Georgia and his father was Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, while his mother was Ekaterine Keke Geladze, a housemaid. As a child, Ioseb was plagued with health issues

11.
Stakhanovite movement
–
Such a worker exhibited socialist emulation of model workers and was, or aspired to be, a shock worker. The Stakhanovite movement began during the Soviet second 5-year plan in 1935 as a new stage of socialist competition, the Stakhanovite movement took its name from Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, who had mined 102 tons of coal in less than 6 hours on 31 August 1935. However, Stakhanovite followers would soon break his record, on February 1,1936, it was reported that Nikita Izotov had mined 640 tons of coal in a single shift. The Stakhanovite movement, supported and led by the Communist Party, on November 14–17,1935, the 1st All-Union Stakhanovite Conference took place at the Kremlin. The conference emphasized the role of the Stakhanovite movement in the socialist re-construction of the national economy. In December 1935 the plenum of the Communist Partys Central Committee specifically discussed aspects of developing industry, in accordance with the decisions of the plenum, the Soviets organized a wide network of industrial training and created special courses for foremen of socialist labor. In 1936 a number of industrial and technical conferences revised the production capacities of different industries. They also introduced Stakhanovite competitions within factories and plants, broken down into periods of five days, the factory management would often create the Stakhanovite brigades or departments, which reached a stable higher collective output. Female Stakhanovites emerged more seldom than male ones, but a quarter of all women were designated as norm-breaking. A preponderance of rural Stakhanovites were women, working as milkmaids, calf tenders, opposition to the movement merited the label of wrecker. The Soviet authorities claimed that the Stakhanovite movement had caused a significant increase in labor productivity and it was reported that during the first 5-year plan industrial labor productivity increased 41%. During the second 5-year plan it reportedly increased 82%, the discussion of the draft constitution in the 1930s was used to encourage a second wind for the movement. During World War II the Stakhanovites used different methods to increase productivity, such as working several machine-tools at a time, the Stakhanovites organized the two-hundreders movement and one-thousanders movement. The Stakhanovite movement remained widespread after the war, the press, literature and films praised Stakhanov and other model workers, urging other workers to emulate their heroic examples. The achievements of Stakhanovites served as an argument in favor of increasing work quotas, in the de-Stalinization era, which sought to undermine any achievements made during Stalins régime, the Stakhanovite movement was declared a Stalinist propaganda maneuver. Where workers received the best equipment and most favorable conditions, the best results would be achieved, after Stalins death in March 1953 brigades of socialist labor replaced Stakhanovitism. In 1988 the Soviet newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda claimed that the widely propagandized personal achievements of Stakhanov were puffery, the paper insisted that Stakhanov had used a number of helpers on support work, while the output was tallied for him alone. Stakhanovs approach had led to the increased productivity by means of a better organization of the work, including specialization

12.
Communist International
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The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern and also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization that advocated world communism. The Comintern had seven World Congresses between 1919 and 1935 and it also had thirteen Enlarged Plenums of its governing Executive Committee, which had much the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses. The Comintern was officially dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1943, while the differences had been evident for decades, World War I proved the issue that finally divided the revolutionary and reformist wings of the workers movement. The socialist movement had been historically antimilitarist and internationalist, and therefore opposed workers serving as fodder for the bourgeois governments at war. This especially since the Triple Alliance comprised two empires, while the Triple Entente gathered France and Britain into an alliance with Russia, karl Marxs The Communist Manifesto had stated that the working class has no country and exclaimed Proletarians of all countries, unite. Massive majorities voted in favor of resolutions for the Second International to call upon the working class to resist war if it were declared. Nevertheless, within hours of the declarations of war, almost all the socialist parties of the combatant states announced their support for the war, the only exceptions were the socialist parties of the Balkans. To Lenins surprise, even the Social Democratic Party of Germany voted in favor of war credits, Socialist parties in neutral countries mostly supported neutrality rather than total opposition to the war. The International divided into a left and a reformist right. Lenin condemned much of the center as social-pacifists for several reasons, Lenins term social-pacifist aimed in particular at Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Independent Labour Party in Britain, who opposed the war on grounds of pacifism, but did not actively resist it. Discredited by its passivity towards world events, the Second International dissolved in the middle of the war in 1916, the victory of the Russian Communist Party in the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 was felt throughout the world. An alternative path to power to parliamentary politics was demonstrated, with much of Europe on the verge of economic and political collapse in the aftermath of the carnage of the Great War, revolutionary sentiments were widespread. The Bolsheviks believed that required a new international to ferment revolution in Europe. The Comintern was founded at a Congress held in Moscow March 2–6,1919, there were 52 delegates present from 34 parties. They decided to form an Executive Committee with representatives of the most important sections, the Congress decided that the Executive Committee would elect a five-member bureau to run the daily affairs of the International. However, such a bureau was not formed and Lenin, Trotsky, Zinoviev was assisted by Angelica Balabanoff, acting as the secretary of the International, Victor L. Kibaltchitch and Vladmir Ossipovich Mazin. Lenin, Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai presented material, the main topic of discussion was the difference between bourgeois democracy and the dictatorship of the proletariat. The central policy of the Comintern under Lenins leadership was that Communist parties should be established across the world to aid the international proletarian revolution, in this period, the Comintern was promoted as the General Staff of the World Revolution

13.
Allies of World War II
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The Allies of World War II, called the United Nations from the 1 January 1942 declaration, were the countries that together opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War. The Allies promoted the alliance as seeking to stop German, Japanese, at the start of the war on 1 September 1939, the Allies consisted of France, Poland and the United Kingdom, and dependent states, such as the British India. Within days they were joined by the independent Dominions of the British Commonwealth, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Poland was a minor factor after its defeat in 1939, France was a minor factor after its defeat in 1940. China had already been into a war with Japan since the Marco Polo Bridge Incident of 1937. The alliance was formalised by the Declaration by United Nations, from 1 January 1942, however, the name United Nations was rarely used to describe the Allies during the war. The leaders of the Big Three – the UK, the Soviet Union, in 1945, the Allied nations became the basis of the United Nations. The origins of the Allied powers stem from the Allies of World War I, Germany resented signing Treaty of Versailles. The new Weimar republics legitimacy became shaken, by the early 1930s, the Nazi Party led by Adolf Hitler became the dominant revanchist movement in Germany and Hitler and the Nazis gained power in 1933. The Nazi regime demanded the cancellation of the Treaty of Versailles and made claims to German-populated Austria. The likelihood of war was high, and the question was whether it could be avoided through strategies such as appeasement, in Asia, when Japan seized Manchuria in 1931, the League of Nations condemned it for aggression against China. Japan responded by leaving the League of Nations in March 1933, after four quiet years, the Sino-Japanese War erupted in 1937 with Japanese forces invading China. The League of Nations condemned Japans actions and initiated sanctions on Japan, the United States, in particular, was angered at Japan and sought to support China. In March 1939, Germany took over Czechoslovakia, violating the Munich Agreement signed six months before, Britain and France decided that Hitler had no intention to uphold diplomatic agreements and responded by preparing for war. On 31 March 1939, Britain formed the Anglo-Polish military alliance in an effort to avert a German attack on the country, also, the French had a long-standing alliance with Poland since 1921. The Soviet Union sought an alliance with the powers. The agreement secretly divided the independent nations of eastern Europe between the two powers and assured adequate oil supplies for the German war machine, on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, two days later Britain and France declared war on Germany. Then, on 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, a Polish government-in-exile was set up and it continued to be one of the Allies, a model followed by other occupied countries. After a quiet winter, Germany in April 1940 invaded and quickly defeated Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Britain and its Empire stood alone against Hitler and Mussolini

14.
Red Army
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The Workers and Peasants Red Army was the army and the air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, and after 1922 the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The army was established immediately after the 1917 October Revolution, the Bolsheviks raised an army to oppose the military confederations of their adversaries during the Russian Civil War. The Red Army is credited as being the land force in the Allied victory in the European theatre of World War II. During operations on the Eastern Front, it fought 75%–80% of the German land forces deployed in the war, inflicting the vast majority of all German losses and ultimately capturing the German capital. In September 1917, Vladimir Lenin wrote, There is only one way to prevent the restoration of the police, at the time, the Imperial Russian Army had started to collapse. The Tsarist general Nikolay Dukhonin estimated that there had been 2 million deserters,1.8 million dead,5 million wounded and 2 million prisoners and he estimated the remaining troops as numbering 10 million. Therefore, the Council of Peoples Commissars decided to form the Red Army on 28 January 1918 and they envisioned a body formed from the class-conscious and best elements of the working classes. All citizens of the Russian republic aged 18 or older were eligible, in the event of an entire unit wanting to join the Red Army, a collective guarantee and the affirmative vote of all its members would be necessary. Because the Red Army was composed mainly of peasants, the families of those who served were guaranteed rations, some peasants who remained at home yearned to join the Army, men, along with some women, flooded the recruitment centres. If they were turned away they would collect scrap metal and prepare care-packages, in some cases the money they earned would go towards tanks for the Army. Nikolai Krylenko was the supreme commander-in-chief, with Aleksandr Myasnikyan as deputy, Nikolai Podvoisky became the commissar for war, Pavel Dybenko, commissar for the fleet. Proshyan, Samoisky, Steinberg were also specified as peoples commissars as well as Vladimir Bonch-Bruyevich from the Bureau of Commissars, at a joint meeting of Bolsheviks and Left Socialist-Revolutionaries, held on 22 February 1918, Krylenko remarked, We have no army. The Red Guard units are brushed aside like flies and we have no power to stay the enemy, only an immediate signing of the peace treaty will save us from destruction. This provoked the insurrection of General Alexey Maximovich Kaledins Volunteer Army in the River Don region, the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk aggravated Russian internal politics. The situation encouraged direct Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, a series of engagements resulted, involving, amongst others, the Czechoslovak Legion, the Polish 5th Rifle Division, and the pro-Bolshevik Red Latvian Riflemen. The Whites defeated the Red Army on each front, Leon Trotsky reformed and counterattacked, the Red Army repelled Admiral Kolchaks army in June, and the armies of General Denikin and General Yudenich in October. By mid-November the White armies were all almost completely exhausted, in January 1920, Budennys First Cavalry Army entered Rostov-on-Don. 1919 to 1923 At the wars start, the Red Army consisted of 299 infantry regiments, Civil war intensified after Lenin dissolved the Russian Constituent Assembly and the Soviet government signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, removing Russia from the Great War

15.
Nazi Germany
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Nazi Germany is the common English name for the period in German history from 1933 to 1945, when Germany was governed by a dictatorship under the control of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Under Hitlers rule, Germany was transformed into a fascist state in which the Nazi Party took totalitarian control over all aspects of life. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich from 1933 to 1943, the period is also known under the names the Third Reich and the National Socialist Period. The Nazi regime came to an end after the Allied Powers defeated Germany in May 1945, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany by the President of the Weimar Republic Paul von Hindenburg on 30 January 1933. The Nazi Party then began to eliminate all opposition and consolidate its power. Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934, and Hitler became dictator of Germany by merging the powers and offices of the Chancellery, a national referendum held 19 August 1934 confirmed Hitler as sole Führer of Germany. All power was centralised in Hitlers person, and his word became above all laws, the government was not a coordinated, co-operating body, but a collection of factions struggling for power and Hitlers favour. In the midst of the Great Depression, the Nazis restored economic stability and ended mass unemployment using heavy military spending, extensive public works were undertaken, including the construction of Autobahnen. The return to economic stability boosted the regimes popularity, racism, especially antisemitism, was a central feature of the regime. The Germanic peoples were considered by the Nazis to be the purest branch of the Aryan race, millions of Jews and other peoples deemed undesirable by the state were murdered in the Holocaust. Opposition to Hitlers rule was ruthlessly suppressed, members of the liberal, socialist, and communist opposition were killed, imprisoned, or exiled. The Christian churches were also oppressed, with many leaders imprisoned, education focused on racial biology, population policy, and fitness for military service. Career and educational opportunities for women were curtailed, recreation and tourism were organised via the Strength Through Joy program, and the 1936 Summer Olympics showcased the Third Reich on the international stage. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels made effective use of film, mass rallies, the government controlled artistic expression, promoting specific art forms and banning or discouraging others. Beginning in the late 1930s, Nazi Germany made increasingly aggressive territorial demands and it seized Austria and Czechoslovakia in 1938 and 1939. Hitler made a pact with Joseph Stalin and invaded Poland in September 1939. In alliance with Italy and smaller Axis powers, Germany conquered most of Europe by 1940, reichskommissariats took control of conquered areas, and a German administration was established in what was left of Poland. Jews and others deemed undesirable were imprisoned, murdered in Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps, following the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the tide gradually turned against the Nazis, who suffered major military defeats in 1943

16.
Eastern Front (World War II)
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The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres. The Eastern Front, as the site of nearly all extermination camps, death marches, ghettos, of the estimated 70 million deaths attributed to World War II, over 30 million, many of them civilian, occurred on the Eastern Front. The Eastern Front was decisive in determining the outcome of the European portion of World War II and it resulted in the destruction of the Third Reich, the partition of Germany for nearly half a century and the rise of the Soviet Union as a military and industrial superpower. The two principal belligerent powers were Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, along with their respective allies. Though never engaged in action in the Eastern Front, the United Kingdom. The joint German–Finnish operations across the northernmost Finnish–Soviet border and in the Murmansk region are considered part of the Eastern Front, in addition, the Soviet–Finnish Continuation War may also be considered the northern flank of the Eastern Front. Despite their ideological antipathy, both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union shared a dislike for the outcome of World War I. The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact signed in August 1939 was an agreement between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. It contained a secret protocol aiming to return Central Europe to the pre–World War I status quo by dividing it between Germany and the Soviet Union, Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania would return to Soviet control, while Poland and Romania would be divided. I need the Ukraine so that they cant starve us out, the two powers invaded and partitioned Poland in 1939. The annexations were never recognized by most Western states, the annexed Romanian territory was divided between the Ukrainian and Moldavian Soviet republics. Adolf Hitler had argued in his autobiography Mein Kampf for the necessity of Lebensraum, acquiring new territory for Germans in Eastern Europe, Wehrmacht officers told their troops to target people who were described as Jewish Bolshevik subhumans, the Mongol hordes, the Asiatic flood and the red beast. The vast majority of German soldiers viewed the war in Nazi terms, Hitler referred to the war in unique terms, calling it a war of annihilation which was both an ideological and racial war. In addition, the Nazis also sought to wipe out the large Jewish population of Central, after Germanys initial success at the Battle of Kiev in 1941, Hitler saw the Soviet Union as militarily weak and ripe for immediate conquest. On 3 October 1941, he announced, We have only to kick in the door, thus, Germany expected another short Blitzkrieg and made no serious preparations for prolonged warfare. Throughout the 1930s the Soviet Union underwent massive industrialization and economic growth under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, Stalins central tenet, Socialism in one country, manifested itself as a series of nationwide centralized Five-Year Plans from 1929 onwards. It served as a testing ground for both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army to experiment with equipment and tactics that they would later employ on a wider scale in the Second World War

17.
Moscow
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Moscow is the capital and most populous city of Russia, with 13.2 million residents within the city limits and 17.8 million within the urban area. Moscow has the status of a Russian federal city, Moscow is a major political, economic, cultural, and scientific center of Russia and Eastern Europe, as well as the largest city entirely on the European continent. Moscow is the northernmost and coldest megacity and metropolis on Earth and it is home to the Ostankino Tower, the tallest free standing structure in Europe, the Federation Tower, the tallest skyscraper in Europe, and the Moscow International Business Center. Moscow is situated on the Moskva River in the Central Federal District of European Russia, the city is well known for its architecture, particularly its historic buildings such as Saint Basils Cathedral with its brightly colored domes. Moscow is the seat of power of the Government of Russia, being the site of the Moscow Kremlin, the Moscow Kremlin and Red Square are also one of several World Heritage Sites in the city. Both chambers of the Russian parliament also sit in the city and it is recognized as one of the citys landmarks due to the rich architecture of its 200 stations. In old Russian the word also meant a church administrative district. The demonym for a Moscow resident is москвич for male or москвичка for female, the name of the city is thought to be derived from the name of the Moskva River. There have been proposed several theories of the origin of the name of the river and its cognates include Russian, музга, muzga pool, puddle, Lithuanian, mazgoti and Latvian, mazgāt to wash, Sanskrit, majjati to drown, Latin, mergō to dip, immerse. There exist as well similar place names in Poland like Mozgawa, the original Old Russian form of the name is reconstructed as *Москы, *Mosky, hence it was one of a few Slavic ū-stem nouns. From the latter forms came the modern Russian name Москва, Moskva, in a similar manner the Latin name Moscovia has been formed, later it became a colloquial name for Russia used in Western Europe in the 16th–17th centuries. From it as well came English Muscovy, various other theories, having little or no scientific ground, are now largely rejected by contemporary linguists. The surface similarity of the name Russia with Rosh, an obscure biblical tribe or country, the oldest evidence of humans on the territory of Moscow dates from the Neolithic. Within the modern bounds of the city other late evidence was discovered, on the territory of the Kremlin, Sparrow Hills, Setun River and Kuntsevskiy forest park, etc. The earliest East Slavic tribes recorded as having expanded to the upper Volga in the 9th to 10th centuries are the Vyatichi and Krivichi, the Moskva River was incorporated as part of Rostov-Suzdal into the Kievan Rus in the 11th century. By AD1100, a settlement had appeared on the mouth of the Neglinnaya River. The first known reference to Moscow dates from 1147 as a place of Yuri Dolgoruky. At the time it was a town on the western border of Vladimir-Suzdal Principality

18.
Great Patriotic War (term)
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For some legal purposes its period might be extended to 11 May 1945 to also include the end of the Prague Offensive. The Great Patriotic War is commemorated on 9 May, the term Patriotic War refers to the Russian resistance to the French invasion of Russia under Napoleon I, which became known as the Patriotic War of 1812. After 1914, the phrase was applied to World War I, the phrases Second Patriotic War and Great World Patriotic War were also used during World War I in Russia. The term Great Patriotic War re-appeared in the Soviet newspaper Pravda on 23 June 1941 and it was found in the title of The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet People, a long article by Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, a member of Pravda editors collegium. The phrase was intended to motivate the population to defend the Soviet fatherland and to expel the invader, the term Отечественная война was officially recognized by establishment of the Order of the Patriotic War on 20 May 1942, awarded for heroic deeds. The term is not generally used outside the former Soviet Union, the term does also not refer to the Soviet Unions 1941 invasion of Iran alongside Britain, the war with Japan nor the war on the Western front. On 9 April 2015 the Ukrainian parliament replaced the term Great Patriotic War in the lexicon with Second World War

19.
October Revolution
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It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 25 October 1917. During this time, urban workers began to organize into councils wherein revolutionaries criticized the provisional government and this immediately initiated the establishment of the Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first self-proclaimed socialist state. The revolution was led by the Bolsheviks, who used their influence in the Petrograd Soviet to organize the armed forces, Bolshevik Red Guards forces under the Military Revolutionary Committee began the takeover of government buildings on 24 October 1917. The following day, the Winter Palace, was captured, the long-awaited Constituent Assembly elections were held on 12 November 1917. The Bolsheviks only won 175 seats in the 715-seat legislative body, coming in second behind the Socialist Revolutionary party, the Constituent Assembly was to first meet on 28 November 1917, but its convocation was delayed until 5 January 1918 by the Bolsheviks. On its first and only day in session, the body rejected Soviet decrees on peace and land, as the revolution was not universally recognized, there followed the struggles of the Russian Civil War and the creation of the Soviet Union in 1922. At first, the event was referred to as the October coup or the Uprising of 25th, in Russian, however, переворот has a similar meaning to revolution and also means upheaval or overturn, so coup is not necessarily the correct translation. With time, the term October Revolution came into use and it is also known as the November Revolution having occurred in November according to the Gregorian Calendar. The Great October Socialist Revolution was the name for the October Revolution in the Soviet Union after the 10th anniversary of the Revolution in 1927. The February Revolution had toppled Tsar Nicolas II of Russia, however, the provisional government was weak and riven by internal dissension. It continued to wage World War I, which became increasingly unpopular, a nationwide crisis developed in Russia, affecting social, economic, and political relations. Disorder in industry and transport had intensified, and difficulties in obtaining provisions had increased, gross industrial production in 1917 had decreased by over 36% from what it had been in 1914. In the autumn, as much as 50% of all enterprises were closed down in the Urals, the Donbas, at the same time, the cost of living increased sharply. Real wages fell about 50% from what they had been in 1913, russias national debt in October 1917 had risen to 50 billion rubles. Of this, debts to foreign governments constituted more than 11 billion rubles, the country faced the threat of financial bankruptcy. In these months alone, more than a million took part in strikes. Workers established control over production and distribution in many factories and plants in a social revolution, by October 1917, there had been over 4,000 peasant uprisings against landowners. When the Provisional Government sent punitive detachments, it only enraged the peasants

20.
Flag of the Soviet Union
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The flag of the Soviet Union, commonly known as the Soviet flag was the official national flag of the Soviet Union from 1923 to 1991. The flags design and symbolism are derived from the Russian Revolution, the flag is also an international symbol of the communist movement as a whole. The nicknames for the flag were The Hammer and Sickle and The Red Banner, the design is a solid field of red adorned with a unique gold emblem in the upper hoist quarter. The red flag was a revolutionary symbol long before 1917. The iconic hammer and sickle design was a modern touch – the union of the hammer, the famous emblem is topped by an inconspicuous red star representing the rule of the Communist Party. The first flag with the red star, hammer and sickle was adopted on 13 November 1923, in 1955, a statute on the flag was adopted which resulted in a change of the hammers handle length and the shape of the sickle. A final modification to the flag was adopted in 1980 in which the colour was brightened to a shade of red. The flag continued to be the national flag until the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Its imagery is now the basis for the flags of many communist parties, the flag of the Soviet Union consisted of a plain red flag with a gold hammer crossed with a gold sickle placed beneath a gold-bordered red star. This symbol is in the upper canton of the red flag. The colour red honours the red flag of the Paris Commune of 1871, the ideology of communism can be seen from the flag. The red star and hammer and sickle are themselves symbols of communism and socialism, the hammer symbolises urban industrial workers while the sickle symbolises agricultural workers —who together, as the Proletarian class, form the state. The reverse of the flag is officially just red, without the symbols, however, in practice, the flag was usually made through and through and thus the symbols usually appeared on the reverse side and in the reverse order. The flags design was legislated in 1955, which gave a way to define. This resulted in a change of the handle length and the shape of the sickle. The adopted statute stated that, The ratio of width to length of the flag is 1,2, the hammer and sickle are in a square with sides equal to 1⁄4 of the flags height. The sharp tip of the lies in the center of the upper side of the square. The length of the hammer and its handle is 3⁄4 of the square diagonal, the five-pointed star is inscribed into a circle with a diameter of 1⁄8 of the flags height, the circle being tangent to the upper side of the square

21.
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
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The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, abbreviated in English as CPSU, was the founding and ruling political party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The party was founded in 1912 by the Bolsheviks, a group led by Vladimir Lenin which seized power in the aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917. The party was dissolved on 29 August 1991 on Soviet territory soon after a failed coup détat and was abolished on 6 November 1991 on Russian territory. The highest body within the CPSU was the party Congress, which convened every five years, when the Congress was not in session, the Central Committee was the highest body. Because the Central Committee met twice a year, most day-to-day duties and responsibilities were vested in the Politburo, the Secretariat, and the Orgburo. The party leader was the head of government and held the office of either General Secretary, Premier or head of state, or some of the three offices concurrently—but never all three at the same time. The CPSU, according to its party statute, adhered to Marxism–Leninism, a based on the writings of Vladimir Lenin and Karl Marx. The party pursued state socialism, under which all industries were nationalized, a number of causes contributed to CPSUs loss of control and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Some historians have written that Gorbachevs policy of glasnost was the root cause, Gorbachev maintained that perestroika without glasnost was doomed to failure anyway. Others have blamed the stagnation and subsequent loss of faith by the general populace in communist ideology. The Russian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic, the worlds first constitutionally socialist state, was established by the Bolsheviks in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Immediately after the Revolution, the new, Lenin-led government implemented socialist reforms, including the transfer of estates, in this context, in 1918, RSDLP became Russian Communist Party and remained so until 1997. Lenin supported world revolution he sought peace with the Central Powers. The treaty was voided after the Allied victory in World War I, in 1921, Lenin proposed the New Economic Policy, a system of state capitalism that started the process of industrialization and recovery from the Civil War. On 30 December 1922, the Russian SFSR joined former territories of the Russian Empire in the Soviet Union, on 9 March 1923, Lenin suffered a stroke, which incapacitated him and effectively ended his role in government. He died on 21 January 1924 and was succeeded by Joseph Stalin, after emerging victorious from a power struggle with Trotsky, Stalin obtained full control of the party and Stalinism was installed as the only ideology of the party. The partys official name was All-Union Communist Party in 1925, Stalins political purge greatly affected the partys configuration, as many party members were executed or sentenced for slave labour. Happening during the timespan of the Great Purge, fascism had ascened to power in Italy, seeing this as a potential threat, the Party actively sought to form collective security alliances with Anti-fascist western powers such as France and Britain

22.
Vladimir Lenin
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Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the alias Lenin, was a Russian communist revolutionary, politician, and political theorist. He served as head of government of the Russian Republic from 1917 to 1918, of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic from 1918 to 1924, under his administration, Russia and then the wider Soviet Union became a one-party socialist state governed by the Russian Communist Party. Ideologically a Marxist, he developed political theories known as Leninism, born to a wealthy middle-class family in Simbirsk, Lenin embraced revolutionary socialist politics following his brothers execution in 1887. Expelled from Kazan Imperial University for participating in protests against the Russian Empires Tsarist regime and he moved to Saint Petersburg in 1893 and became a senior figure in the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. In 1897, he was arrested for sedition and exiled to Shushenskoye for three years, where he married Nadezhda Krupskaya, after his exile, he moved to Western Europe, where he became a prominent party theorist through his publications. In 1903, he took a key role in a RSDLP ideological split, Lenins government was led by the Bolsheviks—now renamed the Communist Party—with some powers initially also held by elected soviets. It redistributed land among the peasantry and nationalised banks and large-scale industry, opponents were suppressed in the Red Terror, a violent campaign orchestrated by the state security services, tens of thousands were killed and others interned in concentration camps. Anti-Bolshevik armies, established by both right and left-wing groups, were defeated in the Russian Civil War from 1917 to 1922, responding to wartime devastation, famine, and popular uprisings, in 1921 Lenin promoted economic growth through a mixed economic system. Seeking to promote world revolution, Lenins government created the Communist International, waged the Polish–Soviet War, in increasingly poor health, Lenin expressed opposition to the growing power of his successor, Joseph Stalin, before dying at his Gorki mansion. He became a figurehead behind Marxism-Leninism and thus a prominent influence over the international communist movement. Lenins father, Ilya Nikolayevich Ulyanov, was from a family of serfs, his origins remain unclear, with suggestions being made that he was Russian, Chuvash, Mordvin. Despite this lower-class background he had risen to middle-class status, studying physics and mathematics at Kazan Imperial University before teaching at the Penza Institute for the Nobility, Ilya married Maria Alexandrovna Blank in mid-1863. Well educated and from a prosperous background, she was the daughter of a German–Swedish woman. Soon after their wedding, Ilya obtained a job in Nizhny Novgorod, five years after that, he was promoted to Director of Public Schools for the province, overseeing the foundation of over 450 schools as a part of the governments plans for modernisation. His dedication to education earned him the Order of St. Vladimir, the couple had two children, Anna and Alexander, before Lenin—who would gain the childhood nickname of Volodya—was born in Simbirsk on 10 April 1870, and baptised several days later. They were followed by three children, Olga, Dmitry, and Maria. Two later siblings died in infancy, Ilya was a devout member of the Russian Orthodox Church and baptised his children into it, although Maria – a Lutheran – was largely indifferent to Christianity, a view that influenced her children. Every summer they holidayed at a manor in Kokushkino

23.
Dissolution of the Soviet Union
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The Soviet Union was dissolved on December 26,1991. It was a result of the declaration number 142-Н of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union and that evening at 7,32, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin for the last time and replaced with the pre-revolutionary Russian flag. Previously, from August to December, all the individual republics, the week before the unions formal dissolution,11 republics signed the Alma-Ata Protocol formally establishing the CIS and declaring that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist. The Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the USSR also signalled the end of the Cold War, on the other hand, only the Baltic states have joined NATO and the European Union. Mikhail Gorbachev was elected General Secretary by the Politburo on March 11,1985, Gorbachev, aged 54, was the youngest member of the Politburo. His initial goal as general secretary was to revive the Soviet economy, the reforms began with personnel changes of senior Brezhnev-era officials who would impede political and economic change. On April 23,1985, Gorbachev brought two protégés, Yegor Ligachev and Nikolai Ryzhkov, into the Politburo as full members. He kept the power ministries happy by promoting KGB Head Viktor Chebrikov from candidate to full member and this liberalisation, however, fostered nationalist movements and ethnic disputes within the Soviet Union. Under Gorbachevs leadership, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1989 introduced limited competitive elections to a new central legislature, in May 1985, Gorbachev delivered a speech in Leningrad advocating reforms and an anti-alcohol campaign to tackle widespread alcoholism. Prices of vodka, wine, and beer were raised in order to make these drinks more expensive and a disincentive to consumers, unlike most forms of rationing intended to conserve scarce goods, this was done to restrict sales with the overt goal of curtailing drunkenness. Gorbachevs plan also included billboards promoting sobriety, increased penalties for public drunkenness, however, Gorbachev soon faced the same adverse economic reaction to his prohibition as did the last Tsar. The disincentivization of alcohol consumption was a blow to the state budget according to Alexander Yakovlev. Alcohol production migrated to the market, or through moonshining as some made bathtub vodka with homegrown potatoes. The purpose of these reforms, however, was to prop up the centrally planned economy, unlike later reforms. The latter, disparaged as Mr Nyet in the West, had served for 28 years as Minister of Foreign Affairs, gromyko was relegated to the largely ceremonial position of Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, as he was considered an old thinker. In the fall of 1985, Gorbachev continued to bring younger, at the next Central Committee meeting on October 15, Tikhonov retired from the Politburo and Talyzin became a candidate. Finally, on December 23,1985, Gorbachev appointed Yeltsin First Secretary of the Moscow Communist Party replacing Viktor Grishin, Gorbachev continued to press for greater liberalization. The CTAG Helsinki-86 was founded in July 1986 in the Latvian port town of Liepāja by three workers, Linards Grantiņš, Raimonds Bitenieks, and Mārtiņš Bariss and its name refers to the human-rights statements of the Helsinki Accords

24.
Russia
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Russia, also officially the Russian Federation, is a country in Eurasia. The European western part of the country is more populated and urbanised than the eastern. Russias capital Moscow is one of the largest cities in the world, other urban centers include Saint Petersburg, Novosibirsk, Yekaterinburg, Nizhny Novgorod. Extending across the entirety of Northern Asia and much of Eastern Europe, Russia spans eleven time zones and incorporates a range of environments. It shares maritime borders with Japan by the Sea of Okhotsk, the East Slavs emerged as a recognizable group in Europe between the 3rd and 8th centuries AD. Founded and ruled by a Varangian warrior elite and their descendants, in 988 it adopted Orthodox Christianity from the Byzantine Empire, beginning the synthesis of Byzantine and Slavic cultures that defined Russian culture for the next millennium. Rus ultimately disintegrated into a number of states, most of the Rus lands were overrun by the Mongol invasion. The Soviet Union played a role in the Allied victory in World War II. The Soviet era saw some of the most significant technological achievements of the 20th century, including the worlds first human-made satellite and the launching of the first humans in space. By the end of 1990, the Soviet Union had the second largest economy, largest standing military in the world. It is governed as a federal semi-presidential republic, the Russian economy ranks as the twelfth largest by nominal GDP and sixth largest by purchasing power parity in 2015. Russias extensive mineral and energy resources are the largest such reserves in the world, making it one of the producers of oil. The country is one of the five recognized nuclear weapons states and possesses the largest stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, Russia is a great power as well as a regional power and has been characterised as a potential superpower. The name Russia is derived from Rus, a state populated mostly by the East Slavs. However, this name became more prominent in the later history, and the country typically was called by its inhabitants Русская Земля. In order to distinguish this state from other states derived from it, it is denoted as Kievan Rus by modern historiography, an old Latin version of the name Rus was Ruthenia, mostly applied to the western and southern regions of Rus that were adjacent to Catholic Europe. The current name of the country, Россия, comes from the Byzantine Greek designation of the Kievan Rus, the standard way to refer to citizens of Russia is Russians in English and rossiyane in Russian. There are two Russian words which are translated into English as Russians

25.
Patrioticheskaya Pesnya
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The Patriotic Song was the state and national anthem of the Russian SFSR and of the Russian Federation from 1990 to 2000. It was originally the anthem of the RSFSR between 1990–1991 before its successor state the Russian Federation was constituted in 1991, the song originally was not a song but a composition for piano without lyrics, written by Mikhail Glinka and entitled Motif de chant national. The song has been confused with the chorus of Glinkas opera A Life for the Tsar. Also favored by the Russian Orthodox Church, the music went without lyrics for several years, in 1999 Viktor Radugin won a contest to provide suitable words for the anthem with his poem Славься, Россия. However, no lyrics and none of the entries were ever adopted, Glinkas anthem was replaced soon after Yeltsins successor as President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, first took office on 7 May 2000. The federal legislature established and approved the music of the National Anthem of the Soviet Union, with written lyrics. Yeltsin criticized Putin for supporting the reintroduction of the Soviet-era national anthem even though opinion polls showed that many Russians favored this decision, above the Motherland Majestically by Vladimir Kalinkin, written in 1998 was another proposed set of lyrics. Performed by honored Russian artist Vladimir Detayov, the Duma was made aware of this existence in April 1999. At the initiative of the Ministry of Ethnic Policy of Russia, during the summer of that year, the anthem was performed on the radio station Radio of Russia and the TV channel Moskoviya, devoted to writing the text of the anthem of the country. In January 2000, was carried out in a new orchestral arrangement demo studio recording of this project anthem performed by the National Academic Orchestra of Folk Instruments Russia it, NP Osipova and the Russian State Academic Choir of them. Overall the song received positive reviews, although like Slavsya Rossiya. Bortnianskys anthem Kol slaven - Eng

26.
Communist Party of the Russian Federation
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The Communist Party of the Russian Federation is a communist and Marxist–Leninist political party in Russia. The party is viewed as the immediate successor of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It is the second largest political party in the Russian Federation, the youth organisation of the party is the Leninist Young Communist League. The party is administered by the Central Committee, as of 2015, the party has 570,000 members. The partys stated goal is to establish a new, modernised form of socialism in Russia, Zyuganov had been a harsh critic of Alexander Yakovlev, the so-called godfather of glasnost, on the CPSU Central Committee. In order to oppose Yeltsin, Zyuganov organized a popular-patriotic bloc of nationalist organizations to support his candidacy and it went on to support Zyuganov in the 2000 presidential election. The NPSR was meant to form the basis of a two-party system, the party suffered a sharp decline in the 2003 legislative election, going from 113 seats to 52. Zyuganov called the 2003 elections a revolting spectacle, and accused the Kremlin of setting up a Potemkin party, Rodina, the CPRF was endorsed by Sergey Baburins Peoples Union for the 2007 Russian parliamentary elections. The party played only a role in the protests. Party rallies on December 18,2011 in protest of election irregularities in Moscow and Saint Petersburg were attended by only a few thousand, mostly elderly, the party has also recently called for Russia to formally recognize Donetsk Peoples Republic and the Luhansk Peoples Republic. The partys current program was adopted in 2008, where the CPRF declared that it is the political organization that consistently upholds the rights of the workers. According to the program, the goal of the party is to build in Russia a renewed socialism, socialism of the 21st century. The program of the Communist Party declared that the party is guided by Marxism–Leninism, based on the experience and achievements of domestic and world science, according to its program, the CPRF considers it necessary to reform the country in three phases. In the first phase, it is needed to achieve power through representation by a coalition led by the CPRF. In this case, however, small producers will remain, and, moreover, will be organized to protect them from robbery by big business, bureaucrats and it is planned to reform the management of enterprises through the creation of councils at various levels. The party also plans to transform Russia into a Soviet republic, in the second stage the role of councils and trade unions will increase even more. The economy will be made a transition to a socialist form of economic activity, however. Finally, the phase is to build socialism

27.
Victory Day (9 May)
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Victory Day is a holiday that commemorates the victory of the Soviet Union over Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War. It was first inaugurated in the 16 republics of the Soviet Union, the Soviet government announced the victory early on 9 May after the signing ceremony in Berlin. Though the official inauguration occurred in 1945 the holiday became a day only in 1965. In East Germany,8 May was observed as Liberation Day from 1950 to 1966, in 1975, a Soviet-style Victory Day was celebrated on 9 May. Since 2002, the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has observed a day known as the Day of Liberation from National Socialism. After regaining their independence from the Soviet Union, the Baltic countries now commemorate the end of World War II on 8 May, two separate events of the capitulation of Nazi Germany took place at the time. First, the capitulation to the Allied nations in Reims was signed on 7 May 1945 and this date is commonly referred to as the V-E Day in most western European countries. Joseph Stalin was displeased by this, believing that the German surrender should have been accepted only by the envoy of the USSR Supreme command, field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel submitted the German Instrument of Surrender to Marshal Georgy Zhukov in the Soviet Army headquarters in Berlin-Karlshorst. To commemorate the victory in the war, the ceremonial Moscow Victory Parade was held in the Soviet capital on 24 June 1945, the other World War II victory day, the V-J day is commemorated in August. During the Soviet Unions existence,9 May was celebrated throughout the USSR, though the holiday was introduced in many Soviet republics between 1946 and 1950, it only became a non-labour day in the Ukrainian SSR in 1963 and the Russian SSR in 1965. In the Russian SSR a weekday off was given if 9 May fell on a Saturday or Sunday, the celebration of Victory Day continued during subsequent years. The war became a topic of importance in cinema, literature, history lessons at school, the mass media. The ritual of the celebration gradually obtained a distinctive character with a number of elements, ceremonial meetings, speeches, lectures, receptions. In Russia during the 1990s, the 9 May holiday was not celebrated with large Soviet-style mass demonstrations due to the policies of successive Russian governments, Victory Day in Russia has increasingly become a celebration in which popular culture plays a central role. The 60th and 70th anniversaries of Victory Day in Russia became the largest popular holidays since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In 2015 around 30 leaders, including those of China and India, attended the 2015 celebration, armenia has officially recognised 9 May since its independence in 1990. The holiday was celebrated there while the country was part of the Soviet Union. Azerbaijan has officially recognised 9 May since its independence in 1991, the holiday was similarly celebrated there while the country was part of the Soviet Union

28.
Union State
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The Union State, also referred to as the Union State of Russia and Belarus, is a supranational union consisting of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. The Commonwealth of Belarus and Russia was founded on 2 April 1996. The basis of the union was strengthened on 2 April 1997, with the signing of the Treaty on the Union between Belarus and Russia at which time its name was changed to the Union of Belarus and Russia. Several further agreements were signed on 25 December 1998, with the intention of providing greater political, economic, nevertheless, the nature of the political entity remained vague. The Treaty on the Creation of a Union State of Russia, the intention was to achieve a federation like the Soviet Union, with a common president, parliament, flag, coat of arms, anthem, constitution, army, citizenship, currency, etc. The Union was ratified by the Russian State Duma on 22 December 1999, on the latter date the Treaty and the Union came into effect. Each state has one vote in the Council, meaning effectively that all decisions must be unanimous, a Council of Ministers, composed of the member states Prime Ministers, Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Economy, and Finance and the State Secretary of the Union. The Union Parliament has never put into effect. A Court of the Union, consisting of nine judges appointed for six-year terms, the Court of the Union was never established. A House of Audit or Accounting Chamber, controlling the implementation of the budget, each member state retains its own sovereignty and international personality, meaning that Russia and Belarus are still fully responsible for their own internal affairs and external relations. The Union State cannot claim representation in other organizations or overrule legislation or government decisions of its member states. As such, the Union State most resembles a supranational confederation on the order of the African Union, Pavel Borodin is the State Secretary of the Union. He was first appointed by the Supreme State Council on January 26,2000 for a four-year term, in 2004 and 2008 his term was renewed for an additional four years. Plans had also set in motion to implement a common currency across the Union. Additionally, Belarus and Russia have thus far failed to institute any symbols or even a flag for the Union State, nevertheless, a song called Sovereign Union of Nations has been proposed as the Unions unofficial anthem. The song, which was modified from the National Anthem of the Soviet Union, on November 16,2010, it was announced by the Union State website that the Constitutional Act was 99% ready. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko promised to introduce a common currency on January 1,2004, the currency was not introduced, and the plan was pushed back by one year. On January 1,2005, the Union State again failed to introduce a currency, and it was again postponed by one year

29.
Commonwealth of Independent States
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The Commonwealth of Independent States, also called the Russian Commonwealth, is a regional organization formed during the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Nine out of the 15 former Soviet Republics are member states, Georgia withdrew its membership in 2008, while the Baltic states chose not to participate. The CIS has few supranational powers but aims to be more than a purely symbolic organization, nominally possessing coordinating powers in the realms of trade, finance, lawmaking and it has also promoted cooperation on cross-border crime prevention. Furthermore, eight of the nine CIS member states participate in the CIS Free Trade Area, three organizations are under the overview of the CIS, namely the Collective Security Treaty Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, and the Union State. While the first and the second are military and economic alliances, in March 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev, the president of the Soviet Union, proposed a federation by holding a referendum to preserve the Union as the Union of Sovereign States. The new treaty signing never happened as the Communist Party hardliners staged a coup in August that year. Following the events of August, the republics had declared their independence fearing another coup, at the same time they announced that the new alliance would be open to all republics of the former Soviet Union, and to other nations sharing the same goals. The CIS charter stated that all the members were sovereign and independent nations, Georgia joined two years later, in December 1993. At this point,12 of the 15 former Soviet Republics participated in the CIS, the three Baltic states did not, reflecting their governments view that the post-1940 Soviet occupation of their territory was illegitimate. In May 2009, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine joined the Eastern Partnership, there are nine full member states of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Creation Agreement remained the main constituent document of the CIS until January 1993, the charter formalised the concept of membership, a member country is defined as a country that ratifies the CIS Charter. Turkmenistan has not ratified the charter and changed its CIS standing to associate member as of 26 August 2005 in order to be consistent with its UN-recognised international neutrality status, thus it does not regard itself as a member of the CIS. In 1993 Ukraine became an Associate Member of CIS, following the 2014 parliamentary election, a new bill to denounce the CIS agreement was introduced. In September 2015 the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed Ukraine will continue taking part in CIS on a selective basis, since that month Ukraine has had no representatives in the CIS Executive Committee building. Since its inception, one of the goals of the CIS has been to provide a forum for discussing issues related to the social. To achieve this goal member states have agreed to promote and protect human rights, even before the 1995 human rights treaty, the Charter of the CIS that was adopted in 1991 created, in article 33, a Human Rights Commission sitting in Minsk, Belarus. This was confirmed by decision of the Council of Heads of States of the CIS in 1993, in 1995, the CIS adopted a human rights treaty that includes civil and political as well as social and economic human rights. This treaty entered force in 1998

30.
Languages of the Soviet Union
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The languages of the Soviet Union are hundreds of different languages and dialects from several different language groups. In 1918, it was decreed that all nationalities in the Soviet Union had the right to education in their own language, the new orthography used the Cyrillic, Latin, or Arabic alphabet, depending on geography and culture. After 1937, all languages that had received new alphabets after 1917 began using the Cyrillic alphabet and this way, it would be easier for linguistic minorities to learn to write both Russian and their native language. In 1960, the educational laws were changed and teaching became more dominated by Russian. In the Caucasus alongside Russian there were Armenian, Azeri and Georgian, the USSR was a multilingual state, with over 120 languages spoken natively. Although discrimination on the basis of language was illegal under the Soviet Constitution, for its role and influence in the USSR, see Russification. On a second level were the languages of the other 14 Union Republics, in line with their de jure status in a federal state, they had a small formal role at the Union level and as the main language of its republic. Their effective weight, however, varied with the republic, or even inside it, of these fourteen languages, two are often considered varieties of other languages, Tajik of Persian, and Moldovan of Romanian. Strongly promoted use of Cyrillic in many republics however, combined with lack of contact, some of the former Soviet republics, now independent states, continue to use the Cyrillic alphabet at present, while others have opted to use the Latin alphabet instead. The Autonomous republics of the Soviet Union and other subdivision of the USSR lacked even this de jure autonomy and they were, however, present in education. Some smaller languages with very dwindling small communities, like Livonian, were neglected, on the other hand, Finnish, although not generally considered a language of the USSR, was an official language of the Karelia and its predecessor as a Soviet republic. Also Yiddish and Romany were considered Soviet languages, index of Soviet Union-related articles Education in the Soviet Union Korenizatsiya Russification Languages of Russia Languages of Kazakhstan Bernard Comrie. The Languages of the Soviet Union, ISBN 0-521-23230-9, ISBN 0-521-29877-6 E. Glyn Lewis. Multilingualism in the Soviet Union, Aspects of Language Policy and Its Implementation, Soviet Language Policy in Central Asia by Mark Dickens

31.
Post-Soviet states
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On March 11,1990, Lithuania was the first to declare its independence, with Estonia and Latvia following suit in August 1991. All three Baltic states claimed continuity from the states that existed prior to their annexation by the Soviet Union in 1944 and were admitted to the United Nations on 17 September 1991. The remaining 12 republics all subsequently seceded,12 of the 15 states, excluding the Baltic states, initially formed the CIS and most joined CSTO, while the Baltic states focused on European Union and NATO membership. The 15 post-Soviet states are divided into the following five groupings. Each of these regions has its own set of traits, owing not only to geographic and cultural factors. In addition, there are a number of de facto independent, the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place as a result and against the backdrop of general economic stagnation, even regression. In all, the process triggered severe economic declines, with Gross Domestic Product dropping by more than 40% overall between 1990 and 1995. This decline in GDP was much more intense than the 27% decline that the United States suffered in the wake of the Great Depression between 1930 and 1934. The economic shocks associated with wholesale privatization resulted in the deaths of roughly 1 million working age individuals throughout the former Soviet bloc in the 1990s, by 2007,10 of the 15 post-Soviet states had recovered and reached GDP greater than what they had in 1991. Only Moldova, Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan had GDP significantly below the 1991 level, the recovery in Russia was marginal, with GDP in 2006-2007 just nudging above the 1991 level. Combined with the aftershocks of the 1998 economic crisis it led to a return of more interventionist economic policies by Vladimir Putins administration. Change in Gross Domestic Product in constant prices, 1991-2015 *Economy of most Soviet republics started to decline in 1989-1990, **The year when GDP decline switched to GDP growth. List of the present Gross domestic product, The post-Soviet states listed according to their Human Development Index scores, only organizations that are mainly composed of post-Soviet states are listed in this section, organizations with wider memberships are not discussed. The 15 post-Soviet states are divided in their participation to the blocs, Belarus, Russia. It was conceived as an organization to the USSR. It currently consists of nine of the 15 former Soviet republics, with one participating state, Georgia withdrew from the CIS in August 2008. The sole exception to the above has been their recent membership in the Community of Democratic Choice, the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are members of the CIS and participate in several regional organizations that have Russia as a primary mover. Such organizations are the Eurasian Economic Community, Collective Security Treaty Organization, the last two groups only became distinct once Uzbekistan withdrew from GUAM and sought membership in EurAsEc and CSTO

32.
Decommunization
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Decommunization is a process of dismantling the legacies of the communist state establishments, culture, and psychology in the post-communist states. It is sometimes referred to as political cleansing, the term is most commonly applied to the former countries of the Eastern Bloc and the post-Soviet states to describe a number of legal and social changes during their periods of postcommunism. In some states decommunization included bans on Communist symbols, while sharing common traits the processes of decommunization have run differently in different states. Bulgaria - Todor Zhivkov was sentenced to 7 years in prison, cambodia - Kang Kek Iew is so far the only indicted Khmer Rouge leader, while Pol Pot and others lived free without charges. East Germany - Eric Honecker was arrested, but soon released due to ill health, several people, such as Egon Krenz, were convicted. Poland - Wojciech Jaruzelski has avoided most court appearances citing poor health and he died in 2014 Romania - Nicolae Ceaușescu was sentenced to death and executed. Communist parties outside the Baltic states were not outlawed and their members were not prosecuted, just a few places attempted to exclude even members of communist secret services from decision-making. In a number of countries, the communist party simply changed its name, stephen Holmes of the University of Chicago argued in 1996 that after a period of active decommunization, it was met with a near-universal failure. After the introduction of lustration, demand for scapegoats has become relatively low, Holmes notes that the only real exception was former East Germany, where thousands of former Stasi informers have been fired from public positions. Holmes suggests the reasons for the turnoff of decommunization, After 45–70 years of state communism. After the initial desire to out the reds came a realization that massive punishment is wrong and finding only some guilty is hardly justice. The urgency of the current economic problems of postcommunism makes the crimes of the communist past old news for many citizens, decommunization is believed to be a power game of elites. Very few people have a clean slate and so are available to fill the positions that require significant expertise. People begin remembering that Lenins idea that every cookwoman may govern the state failed

33.
Decommunization in Ukraine
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In April 2015 a formal decommunization process started in Ukraine after laws were approved which, among other acts, outlawed communist symbols. At the time meant that 22 cities and 44 villages were set to get a new name. Until 21 November 2015 municipal governments had the authority to implement this, if failed to do so. If after that date the settlement had retained its old name the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine will wield authority to assign a new name to the settlement. In 201651,493 streets and 987 cities and villages were renamed and 1,320 Lenin monuments and 1,069 monuments to other communist figures removed, violation of the law carries a penalty of a potential media ban and prison sentences to five years. By 16 December 2015, these three parties were banned in Ukraine, however, the Communist Party of Ukraine has appealed to the European Court of Human Rights to have this overturned and this appeal is still pending and the ECHR has not reached a decision. Decommunization laws were drafted in the Ukrainian parliament in 2002,2005,2009,2011 and 2013, during and after Euromaidan, starting with the fall of the monument to Lenin in Kyiv on 8 December 2013, several Lenin monuments and statues were removed/destroyed by protesters. In April 2014, a year before the formal, nationwide decommunization process in Ukraine local authorities removed and altered communist symbols and place names, on 9 April 2015, the Ukrainian parliament passed legislation on decommunization. It was submitted by the Second Yatsenyuk Government, banning the promotion of symbols of “Communist, one of the main provisions of the bill was the recognition of the Soviet Union was criminal and one that it pursued a state terror policy. The ban applies to monuments, place and street names, the ban does not apply to World War II monuments and when symbols are located in a cemetery. Expressing pro-communist views was not made illegal, the city administration of Dnipropetrovsk estimated in June 2015 that 80 streets, embankments, squares, and boulevards would have to be renamed. Maxim Eristavi of Hromadske. TV estimated late April 2015 that the renaming would cost around $1.5 billion. The legislation also granted special status to veterans of the “struggle for Ukrainian independence” from 1917 to 1991. On 15 May 2015 President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko signed the Decommunisation Laws and this started a six month period for the removal of communist monuments and renaming of public places named after communist-related themes. On 3 June 2015 the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory published a list of 22 cities and 44 villages subject to renaming, by far most of these places were in the Donbass region in East Ukraine, the others were situated in Central Ukraine and South Ukraine. Under the Decommunisation Laws the municipal governments had until 21 November 2015 to change the name of the settlement they govern, for settlements that failed to rename, the provincial authorities had until 21 May 2016 to change the name. If after that date the settlement still retained its old name the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine renamed the settlement, on 30 September 2015 the District Administrative Court in Kyiv banned the parties Communist Party of Workers and Peasants and Communist Party of Ukraine, they both did not appeal. In October 2015, a statue of Lenin in Odesa was converted into a statue of Star Wars villain Darth Vader

34.
Latvia
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Latvia, officially the Republic of Latvia, is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe, one of the three Baltic states. It is bordered by Estonia to the north, Lithuania to the south, Russia to the east, Latvia has 1,957,200 inhabitants and a territory of 64,589 km2. The country has a seasonal climate. Latvia is a parliamentary republic established in 1918. The capital city is Riga, the European Capital of Culture 2014, Latvia is a unitary state, divided into 119 administrative divisions, of which 110 are municipalities and 9 are cities. Latvians and Livs are the people of Latvia. Latvian and Lithuanian are the two surviving Baltic languages. Despite foreign rule from the 13th to 20th centuries, the Latvian nation maintained its identity throughout the generations via the language, Latvia and Estonia share a long common history. Until World War II, Latvia also had significant minorities of ethnic Germans, Latvia is historically predominantly Protestant Lutheran, except for the Latgale region in the southeast, which has historically been predominantly Roman Catholic. The Russian population has brought a significant portion of Eastern Orthodox Christians. The Republic of Latvia was founded on 18 November 1918, however, its de facto independence was interrupted at the outset of World War II. The peaceful Singing Revolution, starting in 1987, called for Baltic emancipation of Soviet rule and it ended with the Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia on 4 May 1990, and restoring de facto independence on 21 August 1991. Latvia is a democratic and developed country and member of the European Union, NATO, the Council of Europe, the United Nations, CBSS, the IMF, NB8, NIB, OECD, OSCE, and WTO. For 2014, Latvia was listed 46th on the Human Development Index and it used the Latvian lats as its currency until it was replaced by the euro on 1 January 2014. The name Latvija is derived from the name of the ancient Latgalians, one of four Indo-European Baltic tribes, henry of Latvia coined the Latinisations of the countrys name, Lettigallia and Lethia, both derived from the Latgalians. The terms inspired the variations on the name in Romance languages from Letonia. Around 3000 BC, the ancestors of the Latvian people settled on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. The Balts established trade routes to Rome and Byzantium, trading local amber for precious metals, by 900 AD, four distinct Baltic tribes inhabited Latvia, Curonians, Latgalians, Selonians, Semigallians, as well as the Livonians speaking a Finnic language

35.
Lithuania
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Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in Northern Europe. One of the three Baltic states, it is situated along the shore of the Baltic Sea, to the east of Sweden. It is bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, Poland to the south, Lithuania has an estimated population of 2.9 million people as of 2015, and its capital and largest city is Vilnius. The official language, Lithuanian, along with Latvian, is one of two living languages in the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. For centuries, the shores of the Baltic Sea were inhabited by various Baltic tribes. In the 1230s, the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, the King of Lithuania, and the first unified Lithuanian state, with the Lublin Union of 1569, Lithuania and Poland formed a voluntary two-state union, the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. The Commonwealth lasted more than two centuries, until neighboring countries systematically dismantled it from 1772–95, with the Russian Empire annexing most of Lithuanias territory. As World War I neared its end, Lithuanias Act of Independence was signed on 16 February 1918, in the midst of the Second World War, Lithuania was first occupied by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. As World War II neared its end and the Germans retreated, Lithuania is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe, a full member of the Eurozone, Schengen Agreement and NATO. It is also a member of the Nordic Investment Bank, the United Nations Human Development Index lists Lithuania as a very high human development country. Lithuania has been among the fastest growing economies in the European Union and is ranked 21st in the world in the Ease of Doing Business Index, the first people settled in the territory of Lithuania after the last glacial period in the 10th millennium BC. Over a millennium, the Indo-Europeans, who arrived in the 3rd – 2nd millennium BC, mixed with the local population, the first written mention of Lithuania is found in a medieval German manuscript, the Annals of Quedlinburg, in an entry dated 9 March 1009. Initially inhabited by fragmented Baltic tribes, in the 1230s the Lithuanian lands were united by Mindaugas, after his assassination in 1263, pagan Lithuania was a target of the Christian crusades of the Teutonic Knights and the Livonian Order. Despite the devastating century-long struggle with the Orders, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania expanded rapidly, by the end of the 14th century, Lithuania was one of the largest countries in Europe and included present-day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia. The geopolitical situation between the west and the east determined the multicultural and multi-confessional character of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the ruling elite practised religious tolerance and Chancery Slavonic language was used as an auxiliary language to the Latin for official documents. In 1385, the Grand Duke Jogaila accepted Polands offer to become its king, Jogaila embarked on gradual Christianization of Lithuania and established a personal union between Poland and Lithuania. It implied that Lithuania, the fiercely independent land, was one of the last pagan areas of Europe to adopt Christianity, after two civil wars, Vytautas the Great became the Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1392. During his reign, Lithuania reached the peak of its expansion, centralization of the state began

36.
Poland
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Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe, situated between the Baltic Sea in the north and two mountain ranges in the south. Bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine and Belarus to the east, the total area of Poland is 312,679 square kilometres, making it the 69th largest country in the world and the 9th largest in Europe. With a population of over 38.5 million people, Poland is the 34th most populous country in the world, the 8th most populous country in Europe, Poland is a unitary state divided into 16 administrative subdivisions, and its capital and largest city is Warsaw. Other metropolises include Kraków, Wrocław, Poznań, Gdańsk and Szczecin, the establishment of a Polish state can be traced back to 966, when Mieszko I, ruler of a territory roughly coextensive with that of present-day Poland, converted to Christianity. The Kingdom of Poland was founded in 1025, and in 1569 it cemented a political association with the Grand Duchy of Lithuania by signing the Union of Lublin. This union formed the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, one of the largest and most populous countries of 16th and 17th century Europe, Poland regained its independence in 1918 at the end of World War I, reconstituting much of its historical territory as the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, World War II started with the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany, followed thereafter by invasion by the Soviet Union. More than six million Polish citizens died in the war, after the war, Polands borders were shifted westwards under the terms of the Potsdam Conference. With the backing of the Soviet Union, a communist puppet government was formed, and after a referendum in 1946. During the Revolutions of 1989 Polands Communist government was overthrown and Poland adopted a new constitution establishing itself as a democracy, informally called the Third Polish Republic. Since the early 1990s, when the transition to a primarily market-based economy began, Poland has achieved a high ranking on the Human Development Index. Poland is a country, which was categorised by the World Bank as having a high-income economy. Furthermore, it is visited by approximately 16 million tourists every year, Poland is the eighth largest economy in the European Union and was the 6th fastest growing economy on the continent between 2010 and 2015. According to the Global Peace Index for 2014, Poland is ranked 19th in the list of the safest countries in the world to live in. The origin of the name Poland derives from a West Slavic tribe of Polans that inhabited the Warta River basin of the historic Greater Poland region in the 8th century, the origin of the name Polanie itself derives from the western Slavic word pole. In some foreign languages such as Hungarian, Lithuanian, Persian and Turkish the exonym for Poland is Lechites, historians have postulated that throughout Late Antiquity, many distinct ethnic groups populated the regions of what is now Poland. The most famous archaeological find from the prehistory and protohistory of Poland is the Biskupin fortified settlement, dating from the Lusatian culture of the early Iron Age, the Slavic groups who would form Poland migrated to these areas in the second half of the 5th century AD. With the Baptism of Poland the Polish rulers accepted Christianity and the authority of the Roman Church

37.
Republics of the Soviet Union
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The Republics of the Soviet Union or the Union Republics of the Soviet Union were ethnically based proto-states that were subordinated directly to the Government of the Soviet Union. Article 81 of the Constitution stated that the rights of Union Republics shall be safeguarded by the USSR. In the final decades of its existence, the Soviet Union officially consisted of fifteen Soviet Socialist Republics, all of them, with the exception of the Russian Federation, had their own local party chapters of the All-Union Communist Party. In 1944, amendments to the All-Union Constitution allowed for branches of the Red Army for each Soviet Republic. They also allowed for Republic-level commissariats for foreign affairs and defense and this allowed for two Soviet Republics, Ukraine and Byelorussia, to join the United Nations General Assembly as founding members in 1945. All of the former Republics of the Union are now independent countries, however, most of the international community did not consider the Baltic countries to have legitimately been part of the USSR. Their position is supported by the European Union, the European Court of Human Rights, the United Nations Human Rights Council, in contrast, the Russian government and state officials maintain that the Soviet annexation of the Baltic states was legitimate. Constitutionally, the Soviet Union was a federation, in accordance with provisions present in the Constitution, each republic retained the right to secede from the USSR. Under the constitution adopted in 1936 and modified along the way until October 1977, along with the state administrative hierarchy, there existed a parallel structure of party organizations, which allowed the Politburo to exercise large amounts of control over the republics. State administrative organs took direction from the party organs, and appointments of all party. Each republic had its own set of state symbols, a flag, a coat of arms, and, with the exception of Russia until 1990. Every republic of the Soviet Union also was awarded with the Order of Lenin, number of the union republics of the USSR varied from 4 to 16. In majority of years and at the decades of its existence. The Soviet Union considered the initial annexation legal, but officially recognized their independence on September 6,1991, the Socialist Soviet Republic of Byelorussia, in winter of 1919 The Lithuanian–Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed in 1919 but fell very soon. The Persian Socialist Soviet Republic, in what is now Iran, the Turkestan Soviet Federative Republic was proclaimed in 1918 but did not survive to the founding of the USSR, becoming the short-lived Turkestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic of the RSFSR. When the Tuvan Peoples Republic joined the Soviet Union in 1944, it did not become a union republic, the leader of the Peoples Republic of Bulgaria, Todor Zhivkov, suggested in the early 1960s that the country should become a union republic, but the offer was rejected. During the Soviet–Afghan War, the Soviet Union proposed to annex the Northern Afghanistan as its 16th union republic in what was to become the Afghan Soviet Socialist Republic, though administratively part of their respective Union Republics, ASSRs were also established based on ethnic/cultural lines. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, openness and restructuring were intended to liberalise, however, they had a number of effects which caused the power of the republics to increase

38.
Great Russia
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Great Russia is an obsolete name formerly applied to the territories of Russia proper, the land that formed the core of Muscovy and later, Russia. This was the land to which the ethnic Russians were native, the name is said to have come from the Greek Μεγάλη Ῥωσία, Megálē Rhōsía used by Byzantines for the northern part of the lands of Rus. Within 1654–1721, Russian Tsars adopted the word - their official title included the wording, The Sovereign of all Rus, the Great, the Little, and the White. Similarly, the terms Great Russian language and Great Russians were employed by ethnographers and linguists in the 19th century, etymology of Rus and derivatives, From Rus to Rossiya Little Russia White Russia New Russia Greater Poland

39.
Communism
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Communism includes a variety of schools of thought, which broadly include Marxism, anarchism, and the political ideologies grouped around both. The primary element which will enable this transformation, according to analysis, is the social ownership of the means of production. Likewise, some communists defend both theory and practice, while others argue that historical practice diverged from communist principles to a greater or lesser degree, according to Richard Pipes, the idea of a classless, egalitarian society first emerged in Ancient Greece. At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, in the medieval Christian church, for example, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and their other property. Communist thought has also traced back to the works of the 16th-century English writer Thomas More. In his treatise Utopia, More portrayed a society based on ownership of property. In the 17th century, communist thought surfaced again in England, criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as Jean Jacques Rousseau in France. Later, following the upheaval of the French Revolution, communism emerged as a political doctrine, in the early 19th century, Various social reformers founded communities based on common ownership. But unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the emphasis with a rational. Notable among them were Robert Owen, who founded New Harmony in Indiana, in its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement in 19th-century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the new class of urban factory workers who labored under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Marx and his associate Friedrich Engels, in 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet The Communist Manifesto. The 1917 October Revolution in Russia set the conditions for the rise to power of Lenins Bolsheviks. The revolution transferred power to the All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in which the Bolsheviks had a majority, the event generated a great deal of practical and theoretical debate within the Marxist movement. Marx predicted that socialism and communism would be built upon foundations laid by the most advanced capitalist development, Russia, however, was one of the poorest countries in Europe with an enormous, largely illiterate peasantry and a minority of industrial workers. Marx had explicitly stated that Russia might be able to skip the stage of bourgeois rule, the moderate Mensheviks opposed Lenins Bolshevik plan for socialist revolution before capitalism was more fully developed. The Great Purge of 1937–1938 was Stalins attempt to destroy any possible opposition within the Communist Party and its leading role in the Second World War saw the emergence of the Soviet Union as a superpower, with strong influence over Eastern Europe and parts of Asia. The European and Japanese empires were shattered and Communist parties played a role in many independence movements

In March 2014 the "Lenin Square" in Dnipropetrovsk was renamed "Heroes of Maidan Square" in honor of the people killed during Euromaidan and the statue was removed. Two years later, in May 2016, the city of Dnipropetrovsk was renamed Dnipro.

After Stalin's death in 1953 the USSR and its satellite countries continued to encourage workers to exceed production targets and to publicise those who did so. In September 1959 near Neustrelitz, East Germany, a forester on his AWO 425T motorcycle congratulates a team of women who achieved 184% of work target by planting 25,000 saplings in the time that they were set a quota of 16,000.